Re: Daft Punk Helmet Build
Heh, well thats been that way for about a week now, and its also WAY far from finished. I just figured I'd go ahead and post all my progress up until that point so people can see where I'm coming from. I think next time I might try oil-clay sculpt, but I wasn't really sure I could get all the angles and radii right with just hand carving. I work better when I can sand something, for some reason.
The next thing on my mind was the "circuit board" diagrams in the earpieced of Guy's helmet. I called up a local trophy shop and asked if they did laser etching for plaques, and if they could etch custom artwork. The guy seemed a little curious as to why I needed the shapes I asked for, but its not the first time I've confused someone with my hobbies. I sent him an illustrator file I made, and a couple of days later, I got this in the mail:
You can compare my design to a shot of the real helmet here:
I ran the lines up further because I need to make the "ear cone" piece to go over top of the whole thing. The edges of the "D" shaped outer ear piece will also contour into the circuit board pattern, like the shot above. Yes, I took some small liberties with the design. Normally I'd be very anal-retentive about this, but there were some lines which just didn't make sense to me design-wise as I was plotting them out, and I decided to change them.
I needed to make my hand-sculpt a bit more uniform around the tops of the ears so the MDF ear pucks would fit in better, so I invented my very own hobo circle router:
Then, I forgot to take pictures for a few days, because I got way into the build, so pardon the continuity leap.
The MDF ear "D" shapes were glued into place and blended into the form with apoxy sculpt, then the "seam" line around the ears was carved with a dremel:
I started work on an "ear cone" carved out of insulation foam, but after trying to sand and paint it for molding, I decided on a lathed piece of MDF instead. The foam one:
the MDF replacement:
I made a mold of this and made 2 duplicates in resin, which will be affixed to the sides once I'm done shaping the rest of that area.
The mold doesn't sit terribly well when you wear it, but it IS wearable! I can't resist taking some process shots now and then while wearing a leather jacket, just to see how its looking.
In that pic, I noticed a lot of issues. The chin area needs to be perpendicular to the ground when worn, and the ear "D" shapes taper upwards as they go back. I fixed the ears but the chin still needs to be reworked.
I also rounded all the intersecting edges and finished the base so it sits flatter. There's a bunch of small detail work here (like smoothing the insides of the circuit pattern in the ears) thats hard to photograph. This is where I'm at as of now:
Unfortunately progress has been on a halt since that point last week, since I'm moving into a new house and all my tools and materials are packed away. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more work on this by next weekend though.
Glad you guys like the direction so far!
Heh, well thats been that way for about a week now, and its also WAY far from finished. I just figured I'd go ahead and post all my progress up until that point so people can see where I'm coming from. I think next time I might try oil-clay sculpt, but I wasn't really sure I could get all the angles and radii right with just hand carving. I work better when I can sand something, for some reason.
The next thing on my mind was the "circuit board" diagrams in the earpieced of Guy's helmet. I called up a local trophy shop and asked if they did laser etching for plaques, and if they could etch custom artwork. The guy seemed a little curious as to why I needed the shapes I asked for, but its not the first time I've confused someone with my hobbies. I sent him an illustrator file I made, and a couple of days later, I got this in the mail:
You can compare my design to a shot of the real helmet here:
I ran the lines up further because I need to make the "ear cone" piece to go over top of the whole thing. The edges of the "D" shaped outer ear piece will also contour into the circuit board pattern, like the shot above. Yes, I took some small liberties with the design. Normally I'd be very anal-retentive about this, but there were some lines which just didn't make sense to me design-wise as I was plotting them out, and I decided to change them.
I needed to make my hand-sculpt a bit more uniform around the tops of the ears so the MDF ear pucks would fit in better, so I invented my very own hobo circle router:
Then, I forgot to take pictures for a few days, because I got way into the build, so pardon the continuity leap.
The MDF ear "D" shapes were glued into place and blended into the form with apoxy sculpt, then the "seam" line around the ears was carved with a dremel:
I started work on an "ear cone" carved out of insulation foam, but after trying to sand and paint it for molding, I decided on a lathed piece of MDF instead. The foam one:
the MDF replacement:
I made a mold of this and made 2 duplicates in resin, which will be affixed to the sides once I'm done shaping the rest of that area.
The mold doesn't sit terribly well when you wear it, but it IS wearable! I can't resist taking some process shots now and then while wearing a leather jacket, just to see how its looking.
In that pic, I noticed a lot of issues. The chin area needs to be perpendicular to the ground when worn, and the ear "D" shapes taper upwards as they go back. I fixed the ears but the chin still needs to be reworked.
I also rounded all the intersecting edges and finished the base so it sits flatter. There's a bunch of small detail work here (like smoothing the insides of the circuit pattern in the ears) thats hard to photograph. This is where I'm at as of now:
Unfortunately progress has been on a halt since that point last week, since I'm moving into a new house and all my tools and materials are packed away. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more work on this by next weekend though.
Glad you guys like the direction so far!
